Communication devices used in the reception of digital information commonly use one or more error handlers in order to detect and correct errors that may have been introduced in the transmission of a signal. In general, a digital signal is encoded at the transmitter site with a particular error correction scheme. At the receiving end, a receiver reciprocates the encoding steps in order to recover the digital signal. Presently, several different error correction techniques are available in the field with various capabilities. One of these techniques having high reliability uses Reed Solomon codes followed by an inner code. A desirable use of this technique is in high noise environments where data corruption is more severe. Reed Solomon codes, well known in the art, are complicated and involve complicated computational procedures. Communication devices use Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) for the encoding and decoding of their communication signal. In spite of significant advances made in the field of digital signal processors, they still demand high levels of current to decode a Reed Solomon-inner coded signal. In addition to the high levels of current, the computational steps performed by the DSPs take long periods of time, disqualifying them for use in real time detection and correction of errors. Portable communication devices are at a particular disadvantage due to their dependence on battery power. The high index of error recovery of Reed Solomon codes is very attractive to communication devices which are now taking advantage of the digital signal processing of DSPs in meeting previously unavailable options. Due to the time and current drain constraints Reed Solomon codes have not received an enthusiastic welcome in the field of error decoding in portable communication device. It can therefore be seen that a less complicated method that would rapidly decode errors in a Reed Solomon coded signal is highly desired, particularly due to the benefits it offers to portable communication devices.